How to Involve Informal Institutions into the Process of Local Development of Rural Communities

Abstract

The topic of this paper is informal institutions (InIn) in community development, with a focus on rural communities. The trouble with InIn, however broadly their importance for the qualitative aspect of development is acknowledged, is that they are difficult to grasp. We therefore attempt to design and test a model that a) contributes to a more holistic consideration of these dimensions of community development and b) is realistically practicable in local development with local actors. We refer to this model as "integrated community development" ("ICD"). In designing the model, we are aware of the dynamic nature of InIn and the fundamental role of local actors. Therefore, the starting point is to identify together with them an expression for InIn that is understandable and engaging for them (as non-experts). The methodological framework is participatory action research. The main methods are in-depth interviews with locals and case studies of three municipalities following the process of validating interventions taking InIn into account. The main results are detailed findings on the operation of two of these elements: community platform and community coordinator, both in terms of site-specific solutions (situations) and in terms of contribution to generally applicable theories and practices.